Tit-Bits of Blogging (Part-2)
Getting Started With Blogger
Hi friends! The topics in this article are all about setting up your new blog and working with the basic configuration settings provided by the Blogger platform. Absolutely no programming, system administration, or web design skills are required. The good folks at Blogger have created a painless, World Wide Web based interface for getting started in the world of blogging.
One of the best features of working with Blogger is the ability to change configuration settings and have these settings apply immediately after republishing your blog. These settings range from simply adding the Email Post icon and functionality to all your blog posts to changing the entire look and feel of your blog by selecting a new template. For instance, in only a few mouse clicks, your blog can go from pastel to primary colors and back again. If you don't like your template, try something new! Dissatisfied with your archive configuration? Change it! If you decide you want to take down a post you've already published, you can either delete it or put it in Draft mode and save the text for another day.
Before you can configure your new blog, you have to create a Blogger account and that's where this journey begins.
Creating Your Blogger Account
Registering with Blogger is the first step toward creating your first blog, and it couldn't be easier, given the form-based interface for doing so. Simply point your web browser to the Blogger home page at http://www.blogger.com/ and you're good to go. There you'll see a very visible link that says Create Your Blog Now. Click this link to begin the process.
1- Choose a Username: The username you select will be the username with which you log in to the Blogger site. This username will not be used for identification purposes anywhere in public, so if your name is Jane Smith and you plan to blog with a pseudonym like FancyJane, you can still use janesmith as your username and the Blogging world will be none the wiser.
Creating Your Blogger Account
2- Enter / Retype Your Password: Think up a password that is at least six characters long, and type it in the Enter a Password field. Although you're not protecting sensitive financial information, it's still a good idea to choose a good password. For instance, try to include punctuation or special characters such as an exclamation point or a pound sign, as well as numbers and a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. You should be able to remember your password but it shouldn't be a common dictionary word, your birthday, phone number, or any other phrase that would be easy to guess. After typing the password in the Enter a Password field, retype it in the Retype Password field.
3- Enter a Display Name: The name you select and enter in the Display Name field will be the name used in the footer of your blog posts. This name does not have to be the same as your username. For instance, although your username might be janesmith, if you plan to blog with a pseudonym like FancyJane, enter it in this field. Your blog posts will appear as written by FancyJane, and any comments you leave on Blogger-enabled blog postings will appear as from FancyJane as well.
4- Enter Your Email Address: Enter a valid email address in the Email Address field. This email address will be visible to others only if you choose to enable this feature in your Blogger profile. If you are blogging with a pseudonym, you might also want to maintain a separate email address for your online identity. Many bloggers use GMail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail for free and anonymous email accounts.
5- Continue to the Next Step: After reviewing the information on the first screen of the registration process and accepting the Blogger Terms of Service, click the Continue arrow to move on to the next step. At this point, you have completed all the information about yourself. Next you must complete information specific to your blog. Read on..
Naming Your Blog
1- Enter a Blog Title: Select a title that is meaningful to you to use as the title of your blog. You can change this title at any time, so don't feel as if you are forever locked into your blog's identity. For instance, my own blog is called No Fancy Name specifically because I couldn't think of anything spectacular to name it. However, if I ever decided to rename my blog Julie's Spectacular House o' Writing, I can do so without repercussionsit's just an account setting!
Naming Your Blog
2- Enter a Blog Address: When publishing on the Blogger servers, the blog address you choose will be a hostname that is appended to a blogspot.com domain. Your blog address does not need to relate to the title of your blog, but it's a good idea if they're similar so that your blog address is easy to remember. For instance, just as the title of my blog is No Fancy Name, its address is http://nofancyname.blogspot.com/. I can simply tell someone the name of my blog, and if they're familiar with the hostname.blogspot.com convention, they'll likely find my blog without writing down the address or bookmarking it. Just like your blog title, the blog address is modifiable through your account settings. Be aware that blog addresses must be unique, which means your first choice might already be takenso have a backup or two when you decide to set up your blog.
3- Type the Word You See: You will see a randomly displayed captcha followed by a text box in the Word Verification field. Type the letters and / or numbers exactly as you see them. This word verification step is used to ensure that you are a real person and not an automated process attempting to start a blog for nefarious reasons.
4- Continue to the Next Step: After reviewing the information on the second screen of the registration process, click the Continue arrow to move on to the next step.
5- Select a Template: Blogger has several ready-made templates available for your use. You can scroll up and down in the windows to see all the choices available to you. When you see a template design that interests you, click the Preview Template link to launch a sample in a new browser window. Just like other blog settings, you can select a new template at any time. Do not feel as if you will be tied to your template forever; simply select a template to get started and you can change aspects of it or the entire thing later on.
6- Submit Your Selection: After selecting a template, click the Continue arrow to submit your selection and create your new blog. After you complete the final step of the registration process, Blogger provides you with a link to continue on to post a blog entry. You can return to the main Blogger profile page by clicking the Blogger logo.
Using Blogger with Third-Party Hosting
The setup information presented in Naming Your Blog was geared toward completing the registration process based on hosting your blog with Blogger on the blogspot.com domain. Although the majority of Blogger users stick with this all-in-one solution, if you have a custom domain name and access to web server space, you can utilize Blogger's FTP publishing feature. This feature allows you to utilize the Blogger management interface for customization and post editingthe only difference is that the act of publishing puts all files on your server rather than Blogger's servers.
The first step in publishing to your own web host is obtaining a custom domain name. Use the same guidance when selecting a domain name that you would when selecting a blog hostname: Try to make it easy to remember, and try to pick something that makes sense with regards to the content of your blog. For instance, if you plan to blog about your life as an academic, don't try to register acmeplumbing.com. Similarlyand this should be a no-brainerif you want to maintain your anonymity, don't use your own name as your domain name.
After you decide on a short list of domain names, you must register the name with a reputable domain registration service. There are a great many of these services, with prices ranging from a few dollars per year to fifteen or twenty dollars per year. A simple Google search for "domain name registration" will yield many results, but here are three that I've worked with over the years and have no problems recommending:
- Network Solutions can be found at http://www.networksolutions.com/
- Register.com can be found at http://www.register.com/
- Domain Direct can be found at http://www.domaindirect.com/
These are only three of hundreds of possibilities for domain registration; look around and pick a company that appeals to you. If they all look the same to you, you won't go wrong with any of the three listed here.
If you plan to blog anonymously or pseudonymously, you have to take extra steps to protect yourself if you plan to utilize a custom domain. All domain records are public information and contain three sets of addresses: one each for registrant, administrative contact, and technical contact. However, there is a domain registration service created specifically with this situation in mind: DomainsByProxy (http://www.domainsbyproxy.com/). If you purchase your domain through this service, it ensures that your privacy is kept.
After obtaining a domain name, you'll need to find a hosting provider that suits your needs. Many domain registration services also offer web hosting solution bundles, many of which provide you with everything you need to publish your blog on your own server. At the very minimum you need FTP access to your host, but other considerations include the amount of server space provided as well as the amount of bandwidth allotted to you. If you plan to host sound or video files, which are often quite large, server space will be a consideration. However, if you plan to house only your blog content, text files take up very little space; the typical 100MB of server space usually allotted for basic accounts would be plenty. Typically, hosting services simply charge you an overage fee of a few dollars per X number of megabytes over your limit.
The other consideration is your bandwidth allotment. If you are serving only the text of your blog, the bandwidth coming into and going out of your host will be minimal (unless you're wildly popular). But if you are serving sound and video files, you will use considerably more bandwidth. A basic hosting package might include anywhere from 1GB to 10GB of bandwidth on a monthly basis. But just like with server space overages, your hosting provider will simply charge you a few dollars for overages.
A good hosting solution does not have to be expensive. In fact, basic packages suitable for nonintensive blog hosting are available for $5 or $10 per month. If you become a world-famous, A-list blogger, you could find a $50 per month hosting package (or less) that would take care of your needs. Following this paragraph, I list a few hosting providers that offer stable hosting services with all the features you need (and then some). These are only a few of the hundreds and hundreds of hosting providers out there, but I've personally had some experience working with the providers listed here and could easily recommend themunlike, say, Joe's House of Hosting, which I know nothing about.
- DreamHost, found at http://www.dreamhost.com/
- Fusion Flux, found at http://www.fusionflux.com/
- Hurricane Electric, found at http://www.he.net/
- iPowerWeb, found at http://www.ipowerweb.com/
- iValueHost, found at http://www.ivaluehost.net/
- LiveRack, found at http://www.liverack.com/
- MyHosting, found at http://www.myhosting.com/
After you set up your domain and your web hosting account, arm yourself with your FTP username, FTP password, and the directory path on the server. Those pieces are all you need to configure Blogger's FTP publishing settings.
You configure your FTP publishing settings at the time you initially create your blog, or you can change your publishing settings after your blog has been created. In this section, you'll see the steps used to set up FTP publishing during the initial blog creation sequence.
First, perform the first set of steps in Creating Your Blogger Account, which includes visiting the Blogger home page at http://www.blogger.com/and following the link that says Create Your Blog Now. When you have proceeded to the second step of the process, instead of completing the blog title, blog address, and word verification fields, skip over them and follow the link to Advanced Blog Setup.
1- Enter a title for your blog in the Blog Title field.
2- If you would like your blog to be linked to Blogger.com, select the Listed radio button. Otherwise, select the Unlisted radio button.
3- Enter the address of your FTP server in the FTP Server field. Your hosting provider might tell you to FTP to your actual domain name (for example, www.yourdomain.com), the FTP server might be ftp.yourdomain.com, or it might be something completely different. The point is that this information comes from your hosting provider.
Using Blogger with Third-Party Hosting
4- Select the radio button for FTP in the Protocol field, unless you are specifically told by your hosting provider to use the SFTP protocol.
5- If you have been given a specific path to use for your FTP home directory, enter it in the FTP Path field. If you have not been given a specific path or if the specific path is the same as your home directory, you may leave this field blank.
6- Enter a filename in the Blog Filename field. This filename will be used as the front page of your blog. If your blog is the only site hosted in your server space, you can enter index.html in the Blog Filename field so that when someone enters http://www.yourdomain.com/, they immediately see the front page of your blog. However, if your blog is part of a full website about you (or your company), you should name your front page file blog.html or something similar to avoid conflicts between the start page and the actual main page of your website.
However, if you utilize a subdirectory for your blog (which is set in the next field), you can safely use the index.html filename; no conflict will arise because the main page of your website and the main page of your blog will be in completely different directories.
7- Enter a full Blog URL in the field provided. This includes the protocol (http://) as well as your domain name and, optionally, blog directory name. For instance, http://www.yourdomain.com/ would be a valid blog URL, as would http://www.yourdomain.com/myBlog/. Be sure that you have created this directory on your web server.
8- Complete the Word Verification field by entering the words you see in the image.
9- Continue on to the next step by clicking the Continue arrow.
When you have completed this form, click the Continue arrow. You will select a starter template in the next step. You can scroll up and down in the browser window to view the standard Blogger templates available to you. When you see a template design that interests you, click the Preview Template link to launch a sample in a new browser window. You can change your template at any time during the life of your blog, as you will see in 'Selecting a New Template' section, as well as in the future topic 'Working with Blogger Templates.'
After selecting a template, click the Continue arrow to submit your selection and create your new blog. When this process is complete, Blogger provides you with a link to continue on to post a blog entry. You can return to the main Blogger profile page by clicking the Blogger logo. At this point, no files have been transferred to your server. You must create a post and publish this post before files are transferred. Additionally, you might want to modify your Blogger publishing configuration so that your FTP username and password are saved. If you do not save your FTP username and password, you will be prompted for it each time you publish a post, the blog index, or your entire blog.
If you decide to switch from hosting on the blogspot.com domain to hosting with your own service provider with your own custom domain name, all you need to do is modify your publishing settings via the Blogger management interface. After you have configured your publishing settings, the act of publishing your blog results in the publication of numerous static web pages to your new server.
To begin, log in to the Blogger management interface and select the Change Settings link from your Blogger dashboard. Click the Publishing navigational item. You will see your current settings, which will say You're publishing on blogspot.com if you haven't yet made the switch. To change your publishing option to FTP and to enter your FTP settings, click the FTP link. If you have already configured your blog to publish on your own server and are simply modifying your publishing settings, the FTP configuration screen will be the default screen shown to you.
The FTP configuration form will look something like the following; if you have already configured your blog to publish via FTP and are here only to modify your settings, the form fields will be prepopulated with your existing information.
Configuring the FTP Settings for an Existing Blog
1- Enter the address of your FTP server in the FTP Server field. Your hosting provider might tell you to FTP to your actual domain name (for example, www.yourdomain.com), the FTP server might be ftp.yourdomain.com, or it might be something completely different. The point is that this information comes from your hosting provider.
2- Enter a full Blog URL in the field provided. This includes the protocol (http://) as well as your domain name and, optionally, blog directory name. For instance, http://www.yourdomain.com/ would be a valid blog URL, as would http://www.yourdomain.com/myBlog/. Be sure that you have created this directory on your web server.
3- If you have been given a specific path to use for your FTP home directory, enter it in the FTP Path field. If you have not been given a specific path or if the specific path is the same as your home directory, you can leave this field blank.
4- Enter a filename in the Blog Filename field. This filename will be used as the front page of your blog. If your blog is the only site hosted in your server space, you can enter index.html in the Blog Filename field so that when someone enters http://www.yourdomain.com/, they immediately see the front page of your blog. However, if your blog is part of a full website about you or your company, you should name your front page blog.html or something similar name to avoid conflicts between the start page and your actual website main page. However, if you utilize a subdirectory for your blog, you can safely use the index.html filename; no conflict will arise because the main page of your website and the main page of your blog will be in completely different directories.
5- Enter your FTP username in the FTP Username field.
6- Enter your FTP password in the FTP Password field.
7- If you would like the Weblogs.com notification service to be notified when you update your blog, select Yes from the Notify Weblogs.com drop-down list. Otherwise, select No.
8- To save the changes made on this screen, click the Save Settings button. You will see an onscreen confirmation when the settings are saved, and at that point you must click the Republish button to initiate the publishing sequence.
When the publishing sequence displays its notice of completion, you can navigate away from the Blogger user interface and view your blog or work with other settings. After publishing your blog, the static files will be on your web server.
Logging In to Blogger and Navigating the Dashboard
1- Retrieve Your Username or Password: If you have forgotten either your username or your password, click the small question mark next to the Password field. You will be taken to the 'Forgot Your Password?' screen which also works if you remember your password but not your username.
2- Recover Your Password: To recover your password, enter your username in the Username field and click the Recover Password button. Additional instructions will be sent to the email address saved in your Blogger profile.
3- Recover Your Username: To recover your username, enter your email address in the Email field and click the Recover Username button. Additional instructions will be sent to the email address specified. For this process to work, you must enter the same email address used to create your Blogger account.
4- Logging In to Blogger and Navigating the Dashboard: To log in with your original username and password, enter your username in the Username field and your password in the Password field. Remember that usernames and passwords are case-sensitive, so check your Caps Lock key before typing. Your password will appear as asterisks so that anyone looking over your shoulder does not see your actual password in the text field.
Enter Your Username and Password
5- Check the Remember Me Box: If you would like Blogger to automatically log in with your information when viewing this page on your computer, enable the Remember Me check box. Do not enable this check box if you are using a publicly accessible computer or a shared terminal because anyone using this machine would then have access to your Blogger account.
6- Click Sign In to Continue: After entering your username and password, and possibly checking the Remember Me check box, click the Sign In button to continue. If your login fails for some reason, such as a mistyped username or password, you are returned to the login screen and an appropriate message is shown, alerting you to your error. If your login is successful, you are sent directly to your Blogger Dashboard.
7- Primary Dashboard Elements: The Blogger Dashboard provides you with links to Blogger news and information as well as help and knowledge base articles, links to your profile, and, most importantly, links to manage your blog posts and settings. All blogs attached to your account are shown in the primary Blogs area. The two icons of most importance in the Dashboard are the New Post and Change Settings icons.
You will use the New Post and Change Settings icons as starting points for much of the action that takes place through the Blogger Dashboard. However, if you want to want to edit a post, you click the New Post icon as well, although doing so is counter-intuitive.
8- Add Another Blog to Your Account: You can add an unlimited number of blogs to your master Blogger account. To add a new blog, click the Create a Blog button and you will be taken directly to second step of the process previously used to create a new blog. You might recall that second step, includes providing a blog title, a blog address, and entering the word verification captcha. You then select a template and your blog will be created. This new blog immediately appears in your Blogger Dashboard, allowing you to modify its settings and begin posting to it.
---------X---------
Like it on Facebook, Tweet it or share this article on other bookmarking websites.